On February 24, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law held a hearing, “In Our Own Backyard: Child Prostitution and Sex Trafficking in the United States.”
“Americans tend to think of forced prostitution as the plight of women from other countries trafficked into the United States and locked up in brothels,” said Chair Richard Durbin (D-IL). He continued, “Such trafficking is indeed a problem, but equally scandalous is the violence involving American teenage girls…In many states, child trafficking victims are often arrested rather than assisted. These victims are badly in need of basic services like medical care, housing, and counseling, and a jail cell isn’t the solution. We must change the way our criminal justice system treats these victims. Congress has tried to help. When we passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act [P.L. 106-386] a decade ago, we said that all children who were involved in commercial sex acts are victims and should be treated accordingly, entitled to protection, services, and restitution. But at the state and local level, child sex trafficking victims are still considered criminals. Nearly every state in the nation allows children of any age to be prosecuted for prostitution even though children are too young to consent to sex with adults. By charging children with crimes, we compound the harm…We have created a legal dichotomy in America in which the federal government views prostituted children as victims, yet most states treat them as criminals. If state laws treated child prostitution more like human trafficking, then state social service agencies would play a more important role in helping this vulnerable population.”
Luis CdeBaca, ambassador-at-large in the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, described federal efforts to combat child trafficking in the United States and abroad: “The State Department, along with significant contributions from the Department of Justice, recently compiled information provided from numerous federal agencies on the U.S. Government’s efforts to protect children from sexual exploitation. As part of our larger initiatives to protect children both here and abroad, and to report in a timely way on the implementation of our treaty obligations, the United States on January 22 submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child its periodic reports on U.S. implementation of the two Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. One report was submitted pursuant to the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography. The other report was submitted pursuant to the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict. These reports, in particular the one addressing the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, document the extensive legal, policy, and programmatic efforts at the federal and state levels aimed at preventing various forms of child exploitation and holding accountable individuals who victimize children. Each of these reports represents an ambitious undertaking, involving contributions by, and coordination among, many departments and agencies within the U.S. government, as well as information about state efforts, [and] input from non-governmental organizations. In the next year or so, the U.S. expects to reappear before the Committee on the Rights of the Child to discuss these two reports and answer questions.”
During her testimony, Beth Phillips, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, distinguished between domestic and international sex trafficking, saying, “It is important to keep in mind…that the dynamics of [domestic sex trafficking], and the obstacles to combating it, are not the same as those involved when children are transported across international borders and then trapped in sexual servitude…American children who are victimized through prostitution…come from all socioeconomic backgrounds and all races. It is not necessarily poverty that makes these children vulnerable, but rather abandonment, abuse, or unhappiness. Runaways, throwaways, children who are chronically truant, or who are suffering physical, sexual, or psychological abuse in the home these are the children who are targeted by pimps. The pimps will purport to offer these children the love and attention they never had, but then will manipulate them and force them into prostitution. Unlike international sex traffickers, who incur the risk and expense of moving children illicitly across international borders, American pimps can recruit children at almost no cost. They view their victims as an entirely fungible commodity, knowing they can easily replace one child with another. They have little fear of getting arrested and prosecuted, confident in their ability to keep the victims from cooperating with law enforcement. And they may have customers who have made clear their specific sexual interest in children.” Ms. Phillips also discussed the efforts of the Innocence Lost National Initiative, established in 2003 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal Investigative Division, Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She said that the Initiative “has resulted in the identification of almost 900 child victims of prostitution; led to 510 convictions in state and federal courts; and has seized over $3 million of real property, vehicles, and monetary assets.”
Anita Alvarez, Cook County state’s attorney, echoed concerns expressed about prosecuting victims of exploitation. Ms. Alvarez added, “When it comes to prosecuting child prostitution, my office, in practice, does not charge juveniles who are arrested on prostitution-related charges. We understand this child is not a criminal but rather a victim who needs support, services, and a safe future. All too often, making them safe has proved to be particularly challenging because, in the past, the traditional prosecution of juvenile sex trafficking was reactive and far too dependent upon victim testimony. As a career prosecutor and a newly elected state’s attorney, it has occurred to me that the traditional approach we have taken with juvenile prostitution has simply not been effective on many levels. We are not convicting the organized groups of individuals who are perpetuating this industry and even more importantly we are not able to effectively offer the services that these young women need to help them, keep them safe, and empower them to leave the sex trade industry once and for all. It seems to me that the premise of removing one child from the situation only to have another step in and fill her place is not a good one. With this in mind, I created an Organized Crime/Human Trafficking initiative last July as part of the Special Prosecutions Bureau within my office. Along with our law enforcement partners, both state and federal, my human trafficking prosecutors have been conducting long-term, proactive investigations into these organized crime targets. Suffice to say, this covert work is proving fruitful, even though I cannot, of course, discuss any details of these pending investigations.”
Rachel Lloyd, founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), said, “While the Trafficking Victims Protection Act was passed in 2000, and reauthorized three times since, it is only very recently that there has been a concerted effort to view and treat American girls as trafficking victims. As a nation, we’ve graded and rated other countries on how they address trafficking within their borders and yet have effectively ignored the sale of our own children within our own borders. We’ve created a dichotomy of acceptable and unacceptable victims, wherein Katya from the Ukraine will be seen as a real victim and provided with services and support, but Keshia from the Bronx will be seen as a ‘willing participant’, someone who’s out there because she ‘likes it’ and who is criminalized and thrown in detention or jail. We’ve turned a blind eye to the millions of adult men who create the demand because they believe they have the right to purchase another human being. We’ve allowed popular culture to glorify and glamorize the commercial sex industry and particularly pimp culture. Our policies and economic choices have left huge numbers of children at high risk for many things, including commercial sexual exploitation, simply because of the zip code they live in. And we’ve allowed the juvenile and criminal justice systems to treat victims of heinous violence and abuse as criminals, while the adult men who’ve bought and sold them go free. We’ve sent 12, 13, 14 year old girls to juvenile detention facilities and ignored the fact that these children aren’t often even old enough to legally consent to sex, and they are in fact statutory rape victims.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Shaquana, a survivor of commercial sex trafficking and outreach worker with GEMS, also testified.
